Editing English-language spelling reform (section)

== Arguments for reform ==
Proponents of spelling reform such as the [[English Spelling Society]] argue that it would make English easier to learn to read, to spell, and to pronounce, as well as making it more useful for international communication and reducing educational costs (by reducing remediation costs and literacy teachers and programs), therefore enabling teachers and learners to spend more time on more important subjects or expanding subjects.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Position |url=https://www.spellingsociety.org/position |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=www.spellingsociety.org}}</ref>

Another argument is the sheer amount of resources that are wasted using the current spelling. For example, the [[Cut Spelling]] system of spelling reform uses up to 15% fewer letters than current spelling.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Al-Othman |first=Nawal |date=2003-09-03 |title=Meeting the Challenges to Teaching the Spelling System of English: Voices from the Field in Kuwait |journal=Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences |volume=04 |issue=3 |pages=4–33 |doi=10.12785/jeps/040308 |issn=1726-5231|doi-access=free }}</ref> Books written with cut spelling could be printed on fewer pages, conserving resources such as paper and ink, a principle which extends to all forms and mediums of writing.

English spelling reforms have taken place already, just slowly and largely unorganized.<ref>{{cite web |date=1 April 1906 |title=Start the campaign for simple spelling |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE7DD113EE733A25752C0A9629C946797D6CF |access-date=2009-07-12 |work=The New York Times |format=PDF |quote=[c]hange ... has been almost continuous in the history of English spelling.}}</ref> Many words that were once spelled un-phonetically have since been reformed. For example, ''music'' was spelled ''[[wikt:musick|musick]]'' until the 1880s, and ''fantasy'' was spelled ''[[wikt:phantasy|phantasy]]'' until the 1920s.<ref>{{cite web |title=English Language:Orthography |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188048/English-language/74808/Orthography |access-date=3 July 2009 }}</ref> Almost all words with the ''-or'' ending (such as ''error'') or the ''-er'' ending (such as ''member'') were once spelled ''-our'' (''[[wikt:errour|errour]]'') and ''-re'' (''[[wikt:membre|membre]]'') respectively, though this change did not happen as completely in [[American and British English spelling differences|British spelling]] as it did in American spelling.

Since [[Samuel Johnson]] prescribed how words [[Linguistic prescription|ought to be]] spelled in his 1755 dictionary, hundreds of thousands of words (as extrapolated from Masha Bell's research on 7000 common words){{Citation needed|date=March 2025}} have shifted so that their spelling does not reflect their pronunciation, and the [[alphabetic principle]] in English has gradually been corrupted, since English spelling has not changed with these changes in pronunciation.

Reduced spelling is currently practiced on informal internet platforms and is common in text messaging.

The way vowel letters are used in English spelling vastly contradicts their usual meanings. For example, ⟨o⟩, expected to represent [əʊ] or [oʊ], may stand for [ʌ], while ⟨u⟩, expected to represent [ʌ], may represent [juː]. This makes English spelling even less intuitive for foreign learners than it is for native speakers, which is of importance for [[International English|an international auxiliary language]].

=== Ambiguity ===
Unlike [[Spelling reform#Other languages|many other languages]], English spelling has never been systematically updated and thus today only partly holds to the alphabetic principle.{{citation needed|date=March 2022}} As an outcome, English spelling is a system of weak rules with many [[English orthography#Spelling irregularities|exceptions and ambiguities]].

Most [[phoneme]]s in English can be spelled in more than one way. E.g. the words f{{uu|ea}}r and p{{uu|ee}}r contain the same sound in different spellings. Likewise, many [[grapheme]]s in English have multiple pronunciations and decodings, such as ''[[ough (orthography)|ough]]'' in words like ''thr{{uu|ough}}'', ''th{{uu|ough}}'', ''th{{uu|ough}}t'', ''thor{{uu|ough}}'', ''t{{uu|ough}}'', ''tr{{uu|ough}}'', and ''pl{{uu|ough}}''. There are 13 ways of spelling the [[schwa]] (the most common of all phonemes in English), 12 ways to spell {{IPA|/ei/}} and 11 ways to spell {{IPA|/ɛ/}}. These kinds of incoherences can be found throughout the English lexicon and they even vary between dialects. Masha Bell has analyzed 7000 common words and found that about 1/2 cause spelling and pronunciation difficulties and about 1/3 cause decoding difficulties.

Such ambiguity is particularly problematic in the case of [[Heteronym (linguistics)|heteronyms]] ([[homograph]]s with different pronunciations that vary with meaning), such as ''bow'', ''desert'', ''live'', ''read'', ''tear'', ''wind'', and ''wound''. In reading such words one must consider the context in which they are used, and this increases the difficulty of learning to read and pronounce English.

A closer relationship between phonemes and spellings would eliminate many exceptions and ambiguities, making the language easier and faster to master.<ref>[[Orthographies and dyslexia#cite note-:4-20]]</ref>

===Undoing the changes===
[[File:Shakespeare grave -Stratford-upon-Avon -3June2007.jpg|thumb|right|The [[epitaph]] on the grave of [[William Shakespeare]] spells ''friend'' as ''frend''.]]
Some proposed simplified spellings already exist as standard or variant spellings in old literature. As noted earlier, in the 16th century, some scholars of [[Ancient Greek literature|Greek]] and [[Latin literature]] tried to make English words look more like their Graeco-Latin counterparts, at times even erroneously. They did this by adding silent letters, so ''det'' became ''debt'', ''dout'' became ''doubt'', ''sithe'' became ''scythe'', ''iland'' became ''island'', ''ake'' became ''ache'', and so on.<ref name=handbook/>{{rp|5}}<ref name="etymonline"/> Some spelling reformers propose undoing these changes. Other examples of older spellings that are more phonetic include ''frend'' for ''friend'' (as on Shakespeare's grave), ''[[wikt:agenst|agenst]]'' for ''against'', ''[[wikt:yeeld|yeeld]]'' for ''yield'', ''bild'' for ''build'', ''[[wikt:cort|cort]]'' for ''court'', ''[[wikt:sted|sted]]'' for ''stead'', ''[[wikt:delight|delite]]'' for ''delight'', ''[[wikt:entise|entise]]'' for ''entice'', ''[[wikt:gost|gost]]'' for ''ghost'', ''[[wikt:harth|harth]]'' for ''hearth'', ''[[wikt:rime|rime]]'' for ''rhyme'', ''[[wikt:sum#Old English|sum]]'' for ''some'', ''[[wikt:tung|tung]]'' for ''tongue'', and many others. It was also once common to use ''-t'' for the ending ''-ed'' in every case where it is pronounced as such (for example ''[[wikt:dropt|dropt]]'' for ''dropped''). Some of the English language's most celebrated writers and poets have used these spellings and others proposed by today's spelling reformers. [[Edmund Spenser]], for example, used spellings such as [[wikt:rize|''rize, wize'' and ''advize'']] in his famous poem ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', published in the 1590s.<ref>[[Edmund Spenser|Spenser, Edmund]]. [[s:The Faerie Queene/Book I/Canto III|''The Faerie Queen'' (Book I, Canto III)]]. [[Wikisource]].</ref>

===Redundant letters===
The [[English alphabet]] has several letters whose characteristic sounds are already represented elsewhere in the alphabet. These include [[X]], which can be realised as "ks", "gz", or [[X#English|z]]; [[F]], which can be realised as "ph" or [[V]]; soft [[G]] ({{IPA|/d͡ʒ/}}), which can be realised as [[J]]; hard [[C]] ({{IPA|/k/}}), which can be realised as [[K]]; soft [[C]] ({{IPA|/s/}}), which can be realised as [[S]]; and [[Q]] ("qu", {{IPA|/kw/}} or {{IPA|/k/}}), which can be realised as "kw" (or simply [[K]] in some cases). However, these spellings are usually retained to reflect their often-Latin roots.